The market suffered a mid-session pullback, which basically put it in red after a strong morning. 

The day started out with a move that held support.  The markets then moved higher, with the S&P going to a nominal new high for the rally.  The NDX did not confirm and fell just short of the 1660 previous high.  Then they had a very sharp sell-off mid-afternoon, and only a late snapback in the last hour brought them off the lows.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 10 3/4, the S&P 4 3/4, the Nasdaq 100 7 1/2, and the SOX about 1 1/2.

The technicals were decidedly negative by 22 to 10 on New York and 21 to 9 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was about 2 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of about 1.6 billion.  Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion with a little less than 2 to 1 negative plurality.

TheTechTrader.com board other than just a couple stocks was very narrowly mixed today.  By far the leader on our board today was Astea international(ATEA), which announced phenomenal earnings and blew away Wall Street, soaring 3.69 on more than 1 3/4 million shares traded, a tremendous amount for this thin stock with only 3 million shares outstanding!.

Other stocks of note, Cutera (CUTR) was up another 84 cents. Novavax (NVAX) snapped back with a 55 cents gain on more than 17 million shares.  Viisage (VISG) gained 35 cents, and Evergreen Solar (ESLR) 28 cents.

On the downside, ViroPharma (VPHM) gave back another 1.66.  Neoware (NWRE) fell 80 cents, Dynamic Materials (BOOM) another 42 cents, Convera (CNVR) 44 cents, and Internet Initiative Japan (IIJI) 41 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices after consolidating for a couple days, had a minor breakout that failed to follow-through, and then came back down and took out support.  However, secondary support, which is more formidable at the 40-day moving average and price support, held in the last hour.

The 1638-40 zone is now key support for the NDX, and the 1226 area is support on the S&P.  Beneath that, there's very key support in the 1620-22 zone on the NDX and at the 1215-17 zone on the S&P.

Good trading!

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a FREE 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a Free 30-Day Trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.